Behind the Seams

More in Behind the Seams

Meet "Relentless 1" everybody. Thanks to our friends over at Lewisville Autoplex for the sweet deal on our new travel van. "We're going to use this van to travel around the U.S. and train at badass gyms and meet really cool people. We're going to see people in their home environment, see them in the kitchen, visit them at their gym and everything and use it to go to shows. This will be perfect for doing that and now we can travel around in style and have a good time."

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Better Bodies Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BetterBodiesCommunity

We Bought A Van - Meet The Iron World "Relentless 1" Van

A simple yet revolutionary idea in the early ‘80s led to the creation of Better Bodies. It all started in the city of dreams.

New York City in 1982 was a city of contrasts. Uptown versus downtown was one of many. 23rd street seemed to be the ”border” between two very different cultures. Below 23rd street, outliers and artists were repurposing empty storefronts into punk palaces and warehouses into art houses. Rents, by today’s standards, seem mythic. You could move to downtown Manhattan with little more than a backpack and score an apartment and a job in a week. Artists flocked to the city, transforming it into a dream factory.

The New York fitness scene seemed to reflect the same de facto border, fancy health clubs uptown, hardcore men’s gyms downtown. Women were often confined to health clubs and aerobics studios. The only place where the two sexes could train together was at health clubs, which often served as little more than a place to chat rather than train. At the time, Better Bodies founder Brian Moss worked at the American Museum of Natural History. “I was an instructor. I gave school children tours through the museum.”, says Moss. He trained at a men-only gym, he loved the hardcore nature of the gym, but something was missing.

While sitting at his desk at the museum during lunch breaks, Moss spent his time sketching out his thoughts on a “new” gym concept. He wanted to open a hardcore gym, a REAL gym, that welcomed everybody equally. A place where women were not only allowed but were truly welcome. While that may seem normal today, at the time, the idea was radical. The benefits of strength training were only just being discovered by women. In 1982 in the era of leg warmers and jazzercise, having muscle wasn’t considered “feminine”. He knew they were out there – women that wanted to train hard. Women that wanted to be strong. Brian Moss believed they were overlooked and needed to be included. Not seeking to be treated differently, but rather, equally.

After months of back-of-the napkin notes, Moss finally had a logo sketched on a piece of stationary. He then saved, borrowed, and begged for $60,000 to open Better Bodies. Moss then found an affordable 4,000 square feet location in Manhattan’s “Flatiron District”, known for its large turn of the century industrial spaces. On a hot August day, him and his training- and business partners; Mike Alalof and Ben Rodriguez, rented a box truck and drove to Matty Ferrigno’s gym in Brooklyn. The elder Ferrigno (Lou’s father) had been building and selling equipment from the gym’s basement. Moss and his partners picked out the basics; squat rack, power rack, bench press, barbells, and dumbbells. Just the essentials. At 12 West 21st Street on Labor Day of September 1982, Better Bodies Gym flung its doors open.

It was Moss’ goal to create an atmosphere of inclusion, a gym without judgement. Among the early gym members there were artists, DJs, writers, poets, bodybuilders, musicians, office workers, fashion designers, producers; people from many different tribes and different walks of life. “These were people that came from very different backgrounds and places, but we were all equals when we wore gym clothing.”, says Moss.

Like most gyms during that era, they had apparel for sale at the front desk. According to Moss “it started with the basics, T-shirt, tank top, shorts and sweatpants. Offered in black, white, and heather gray.” The design was simple, just the logo. The clothes themselves were off-the-shelf “blanks”, no special fit, certainly nothing that was made for a muscular physique. Nothing like that existed at the time. But Moss had a solution: scissors. “I often cut the T-shirts into tank tops. Everybody wanted me to cut their shirts. I had a technique where they turned out just right.”

Around the New York fitness scene, wearing a Better Bodies T-shirt meant you were serious, you were part of a NEW tribe and people wanted to be part of Better Bodies. All the notable bodybuilders and serious fitness celebrities of that era visited Better Bodies when they were in town; Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman, Dorian Yates, and many more. The apparel may have been basic, but the professional bodybuilders got something special not offered to the public: their shirts got a custom patch sewn on that marked them as part of TEAM Better Bodies. The addition of the word ‘TEAM’ to not only the Better Bodies logo but to bodybuilding itself was a unique and notable creation. “When you’re on stage competing, you’re by yourself, but everything leading up to that moment takes help from other people. Training partners, friends, lovers, family, even the person at the front desk of the gym, they’re all a part of your team.”, Moss tells. The ‘TEAM’ graphic was silk screened onto bits of scrap fabric, and Moss had a friend’s grandmother hand-sewing them onto already-existing Better Bodies apparel. Today, every fitness brand seems to have a ‘TEAM’ associated with it, but that all started with the original: Team Better Bodies. By initially limiting the ‘TEAM’ patch to the pros, Moss was “priming the pump, before releasing the concept to the public”.

It’s possible that the Better Bodies brand might not have ever achieved the success it did without the first-ever hire at the gym: Gladys Portugues. “She came in one day with an acquaintance as we were building out the gym, I don’t think she was even looking for a job. It was serendipitous, fate maybe.”, says Moss. At the time, Portugues was already working as a trainer at an uptown health club. She was unknown in the fitness industry, but Moss spotted something special in her. Within a year of hard training she booked her first magazine spread, and more quickly followed. Any time Portugues had a photoshoot or guest posing appearance, Moss would make sure she was wearing some Better Bodies apparel. According to Moss, “as her popularity rose, so did the popularity of the brand. She was one of the catalyst’s for the brand’s popularity.” Portugues graced the covers of Flex, Shape, and Muscle & Fitness, which was a feat rarely achieved by a woman. Her appeal eventually crossed over into the mainstream, with photo spreads in magazines like Vogue. Gladys Portugues eventually left her position at Better Bodies and went on to marry Jean-Claude Van Damme, but her mark on both the Better Bodies brand and fitness industry remains; she helped make women with muscle acceptable.

Soon, phone calls and mail orders for apparel started coming in from all over the US. It quickly became apparent that Brian Moss hadn’t just opened a gym, he had started a movement. Regardless of your sex, color, or creed, if you trained hard and loved the gym, Better Bodies was your team.

None of the adventures Moss enjoyed when he conceived Better Bodies were planned. He and his team were young and fearless and New York rewarded it. Fondness for the gym and its clothing remains wide and deep today. Moss, who became a popular bodybuilding photographer after selling the gym in 1997 considers its success charmed. “It was a magical time.”, says Moss wistfully.

If you want to know more about Brian Moss, visit 

How It All Started

Better Bodies is proud clothing partner to the Swedish National Team in Bodybuilding & Fitness.

At the European Championships in May the we introduced a special produced national outfit for the team.

 (women) were made in a limited quantity featuring the Swedish blue and yellow colors for the team to represent their country.

A successful weekend for the team with several medals to bring home.

Better Bodies - Swedish National Teams Official Clothing Partner

Nicci Hernestig and Mathias Guss continues their training weekend in Marbella. Day 2 they were picked up by photographer Julia Roder to check out the UP gym and take some Better Bodies photos in its environment.

"This gym is on a roof top where it's 50/50 indoor and outdoor. It is probably the prettiest gym we've seen. It is also extremely well planned."

The majority of the photos were taken on the roof top but they also went to the beach and captured some cool shots in a more casual setting.

"After all the picture taking we decided to stay at the beach for a workout and stretch. Taking fitness photos a whole day is hard work but it's a lot of fun!"

Marbella Training Weekend Continues

Better Bodies has been available in Germany for over a decade and keeps growing both when it comes to customers, general awareness, and social media engagement.

We make sure to continuously visit Germany and this time our CSO Mikael Söderlund and Key Account Manager Simon Öste went to Berlin for business and networking with our Better Bodies community.

**Day 1, Business and pleasure – all in one day!

**First off our team had meetings with the big online company Zalando for future collaborations. The meeting was fruitful and the future sure looks bright and exciting!

After this meeting they went straight to visit several Defshop Stores within the Berlin City area.

The third mission for this day was to visit the gym and fitness center “John Reeds Fitness” for a workout and meet up with the locals.

It ended up with a great workout for the team – preaching and living the #betterbodieslifestyle we always make sure that when on business trips  there is ALWAYS time for training and meeting with our community.

**Day 2, Meeting with our partner Gannikus/Muscle24.

**Gannikus is one of the largest social media and community platforms within the fitness and bodybuilding community in Germany. We have a long experience working with the Webshop Muscle24.de for many years but now also developing an even stronger collaboration since Marcel at Gannikus is now also managing Muscle24.

“Working alone is not the future, but being strong together is! We want to bring together partners, ambassadors, businesses and people and transform the world to inspire everyone to achieve a healthier lifestyle. This is our mission and I truly love my job!”

Work Hard Play Hard In Germany

Chris Miller, Dallas based logistics manager for Better Bodies is preparing for the physique division of Joe Weider's amateur Olympia in Las Vegas.

"Competing is a way to push yourself, find your limitations and surpass them. The dieting is a way to test your will power and hold yourself accountable. The contest is a way to keep to deadlines. There is no pushing deadlines back because your not ready on time."

Chris takes us into his world as the logistics manager of Better Bodies at the Plano headquarters and then takes us through his arm training one week out from Joe Weider's Amateur Olympia.

Stay tuned for the whole Vegas experience and more work hard play hard from Chris Miller!

Work Hard Play Hard – Chris Miller Preparing for Amateur Olympia

As you may or may not know, Better Bodies is available in around 100 countries and our sales team is always making sure to visit as many partners as possible, as often as possible.

Our key account managers Linnea Enstedt and Simon Öste made sure Austria was covered by visiting partners and they also got in touch with the Better Bodies community in the Austrian gym arena. Better Bodies have approximately 30 re-sellers in Austria and the number is constantly growing. Here Linnea and Simon share some moments from visiting a couple of our partners in Austria recently and give you a recommendation on a “must visit” gym if you find yourself there.

Sportnahrung.at is a partner dealing with Better Bodies since many years back. They are making sure the community can get a Better Bodies “hands on” experience through any of their 30-40 stores all over Austria and Germany. When asked why they like Better Bodies and keep working with our brand and company they say; “We love the design, the quality, and the flexibility working with SF Group and Better Bodies.”

Mike Eberhart and his shop Sportgeist.at has been in business for soon 7 years (but been wearing the brand for over 10 years personally) and started out with Better Bodies in the assortment from day one! Being a Bodybuilding World Champion (WFF) and 4 times Mr. Universe (WFF) he surely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to choosing the best apparel while also living the fitness lifestyle and helping others with diet and training.

DAS GYM / Intelligent Strength is a must visit if you are into any kind of training. Linnea and Simon were given the grand tour of the facilities and it’s so much more than a very impressive gym, it’s an 

Our sales team always live what they preach and made sure to catch a workout together with the calisthenic team True-power.at. This is a team that loves Better Bodies. Some crazy moves went down and Linnea and Simon did their best to follow.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEETING PARTNERS AND VISITING GYMS

“It is so rewarding to meet partners whom with great passion work with our brands helping to spread our WHY, but also to meet the fitness and training community wearing our apparel while passionately executing their own why, often very much in line with our WHY.

The travel we do not only enable us to meet already made contacts but we also always make sure to widen our perspective and network by visiting new contacts, people, gyms and see new places and collect experiences. I’m truly blessed to work with Better Bodies, transforming the world with fitness WORLDWIDE.”

“Meeting with the Better Bodies community, our partners and friends is what we at Better Bodies love to do. Listening to stories about their lives and how they are transforming themselves, their business and the entire fitness community is a true inspiration. Being able to also inspire and to be inspired is an incredible feeling and you always seem to find yourself in those types of environments while traveling with the Better Bodies Team.”

Better Bodies in Austria

Deal of the Day

Tights in one form or another have been around since the 13th century, and today they are more prevalent than ever. It seems that everywhere you look, you can find tights in different colors, prints, and fabrics.

However, one must remember that not all tights are created equal, and we here at Better Bodies take tights very seriously.

With that said let us introduce – Gym Compression by Better Bodies.

What is Gym Compression by Better Bodies?

- A unique textured polyester yarn which is excellent at transporting moisture

- The 72% to 28% polyester to spandex split creates the comfort of a cotton touch

- Fabric is double knitted which means it is anti-see through

- This product has a circular-knit compression which doesn’t flatten out your curves

When it comes to compression, there is a lot of hype and a lot of myths. So let us take a minute to debunk some of those myths and get to the bottom of what compression is and what it does and doesn’t do.

Some will claim that it increases your performance which is not true. You won’t jump higher, run faster, or perform better.

However, what it will do is increases blood flow and enhance circulation both two positives for overall health. Post workout it will aid in the clearing of metabolic waste aiding in recovery and getting you ready to hit it again.

Two types of compression, what is the difference?

There are two schools of thought when it comes to compression. The first being warp knit and the second being circular knit.

Wrap knit is known for its use within the medical arena. It is great when it comes to providing compression. However, it does not have any natural stretch in it. In fact, too much “medical grade” compression can be harmful during exercise. That is why it is important to make sure that when buying compression for training that you purchase circular knit.

Circular knit as the name eludes to provides a circular 360-degree compression. This style of compression has natural stretch which provides a massaging effect and for some maybe the most important quality it doesn’t flatten out your hard earned curves.

Better Bodies Gym Compression

Our vision is to create products for serious athletes in the gym & fitness environment, athletes who understand that a healthy athletic body has gone through many hours of blood, sweat and tears! Athletes who knows and appreciate the feeling of pain that you have to overcome in order to get results! Athletes who are proud to live the Better Bodies lifestyle!

In the early eighties Better Bodies was founded by Mr Brian Moss, a very famous “fitness guru” in New York. Better Bodies started as a modeling agency for fitness models and became very successful and well known in US. T-shirts with Better Bodies logotype was made as promotion and the demand for Better Bodies garments went crazy– on consumers request a small collection was made!

Today Better Bodies is one of the major brands in the gym- & fitness textile industry world wide! Swedish Fitness Trading AB is the company behind Better Bodies, a company with over 20 years experience and great resources that works with development, design, marketing, sales and distribution in several countries.

The importance with our products is that they should inspire to, and deliver, the Better Bodies lifestyle!

First when that requirement is fulfilled a new product can be launched. This means that new products are launched all through the year and in addition to that we have items that follows season after season just because neither us or our consumers can be without them!

“Better Bodies lifestyle – the lifestyle of fitness”

The Company

” you know that back in 1982 in “The Big Apple” Manhattan area of New York – Better Bodies founder Brian Moss along with his revolutionary idea about Better Bodies, created a gym that upheld all of the values of being inclusive and free of judgement regardless of age, color, sex, or creed. A place to call your “home” away from home.

Since my team in the Nordics and I were passed the Better Bodies torch in 1994 we have continued to live by the same values. Seventeen years later in 2011, we established our first USA based office and we regained the opportunity to go back to the original idea of creating a gym of our own as a home base for the Better Bodies brand. The idea was to go back to the original roots as much as possible when it came to creating a serious fitness environment for all fitness needs while creating a global destination. It should act as a playground and innovation hub for Better Bodies and with those ideas our “…destination, Dallas Texas” was born.

Throwback to 2012, Michael Johansson standing by what were to become ...destination Phase 1.

Today thousands of people have gathered from all around the world to join in and visit us for great workouts and community. We have a huge diversity in our fitness activities and it’s a space where you can always “B-YOU”.

On November 16th this year we will celebrate the grand opening of our next chapter with Better Bodies but now in a much larger facility. In this new space, we’ll have much more room to grow our community and have next level fitness activities that in the past we'd only dream of.

The next step in removing any remaining boundaries between current ...destination members and Better Bodies community members is to merge these communities into one Facebook group to allow both groups to interact and make new friends – bringing these two communities together into one!

The conclusion is that all of us has both …destination and Better Bodies as a common denominator. We are all ambassadors for fitness and by supporting …destination as a member we are indirectly supporting Better Bodies, as well as the opposite being true.

Please welcome new friends to our WHY and let’s continue to transform the world to a better place through fitness! We are all ambassadors for a healthy lifestyle.

Michael Johansson CEO Better Bodies, ...destination, Dallas, Texas.

Check out the virtual tour of the new facilities below.

The Home Base Gym

We've always had a blast working around the office and getting things done, but we especially have a good time when we do a photo shoot. So why not share our fun with you? “Shared joy is double joy” (as we say in Sweden)!

My name is Johanna Evertson and I am the athlete coordinator for Better Bodies. I have been working in and around the brand for a total of 6 years. Originally, I was born and raised in Sweden but I came over to the USA 13 years ago and fell in love with the Texas sun and the American life.

Here’s a peek behind the seams at our May photo shoot in downtown Dallas. Our fabulous models BreeAnn, David, Hanna and Josiah were a dream to work with and wore the clothes beautifully in the spring sun.  All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the awesome team we have around the world and I'd like to do a special shout out to our amazing photographer Jennifer Castro who flew in from Florida.

The planning around the shoot involves a good group of people, all from our designers Donna and Jessica who puts the outfits together to Lena who organize, hang and steam them to perfection. Our models usually get hand picked depending on the outfits and the theme of the photo shoot. We try to alternate our models and make sure we give the opportunity to as many of our ambassadors as possible.

I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into my day as much as I enjoyed being there. Nothing feels like work when you're having fun!

Maybe I'll see you at one of our future ambassador meet ups around the world!